History of the Plough Clanfield

A Potted History

The Plough Hotel is the ideal place to stay and explore the Cotswolds.

Believed to have been built in 1660 for a local, yeoman farmer or minor country noble.

Similar in style to a number of properties in the locality, ie Radcot House, Kelmscot Manor and a number of properties in Langford and Kencot. But not as great as these, thus indicating greater age or lower status.

Architecturally the front of the building is south-facing for maximum light and warmth. Consists of ground, first and second floors, with the second floor located in the eaves of the roof.

Although built as a farm or dower house, due to its proximity to Radcot Bridge (either the oldest or second oldest crossing of the River Thames), the Plough became an inn providing accommodation for travellers and stabling for their horses. At one time there were stables on the right-hand side of the building but they were demolished with the widening of the road in the late nineteenth century.

Although Clanfield is promoted as the edge of the Cotswolds, most of the surrounding land is high quality arable land formed by the alluvial deposits of the River Thames. Thus a large percentage of the population were involved in agriculture and this resulted in the Plough becoming one of a number of tenanted public houses in the village.

Garnes Brewery Company of Burford, owned the Plough throughout the late 19th and early 20th Century (the old brewery is now the tourist information centre). Garnes Brewery Company was bought by Wadworth’s Brewery of Devizes, Wiltshire in the 1950s and thus ownership of the Plough passed to Wadworth’s.

In 1968 Jean and Harry Norton acquired the Plough and what was then known as the Masons Arms (now The Clanfield Tavern) and ran a trio of businesses known as the Plough Hotel, Restaurant and Tavern.

The Nortons sold the business in 1979 and the Plough and the Tavern were split into two separate businesses. There were two private owners throughout the early 1980s and the Plough was acquired by the Hatton Hotels Group in late 1984. They closed the hotel for a few months while an extensive refurbishment programme was carried out. It then reopened as an upmarket country house hotel and fine dining restaurant. The restaurant was awarded a Michelin star in 1988 and 1989.

Hatton Hotels Ltd sold The Plough Hotel in 1995 to the Hodges family who extended the property with a new seven bedroom wing in 2000.

The Plough is now back in private hands.